Streetscapes/Henry Janeway Hardenbergh; An Architect Who Left an Indelible Imprint

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY

Published: May 7, 2000

RESTORATION scaffolding shrouds a NoHo Landmark, the Time Cafe building at the northwest corner of Lafayette and Great Jones Streets. Built in the 1880's as the Schermerhorn Building, this stocky Germanic structure bears all the hallmarks of its designer, Henry Hardenbergh.

Even though many of his other buildings have been demolished, Henry Janeway Hardenbergh left an indelible legacy to New York City. Born in New Jersey in 1847, he is best known for his Dakota, built in 1884 at Central Park West and 72nd Street, and his Plaza Hotel, put up in 1907 at Fifth Avenue and Central Park South.

The son of an importer, he apprenticed to the German-born architect Detlef Lienau in 1863, and struck out on his own around 1870. Among his earliest commissions in New York City was his 1878 design for the Van Corlear, a $300,000 apartment house on the west side of Seventh Avenue, from 55th to 56th Street. A mix of Dutch and Queen Anne styling, the Van Corlear -- demolished in the 1920's -- was described by the Real Estate Record & Guide in 1878 as ''the most extensive apartment house in New York,'' in which almost all the apartments were taken before completion, no doubt pleasing its developer, Edward Clark.

Hardenbergh connected with Clark at an auspicious time. Clark, the president of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, was just beginning a building campaign that included property he had purchased on West 72nd and 73rd Streets. In 1879 Clark and Hardenbergh began 25 row houses at 103-151 West 73rd Street, a simple Victorian row, of which only the house at 103 survives, along with the small apartment house designed by Hardenbergh at the northwest corner of Columbus and 73rd that was built at the same time.

Next was the Dakota, designed in 1880 and completed in 1884, one of the city's masterpieces, both of style and vision. Hardenbergh's German Renaissance theme flowered here, along with Edward Clark's ambitious goal of a comfortable upper-class apartment building. A glowing review of the Dakota by the Real Estate Record & Guide in 1884 ended with the observation that ''the owners have been fortunate in their architect, and that Mr. Hardenbergh has been fortunate in his clients.''

This good fortune continued, for Clark built another, better-known row of picturesque houses at 13-63 West 73rd Street, just opposite the Dakota, and also the picturesque little Ontiora, at 55th Street and Seventh Avenue, for which Hardenbergh also got the commissions. The Ontiora survives, as do many of the houses.

After Clark died in 1883, his family ended its association with Hardenbergh, but the architect's reputation was established. His work was ''thoughtful, thorough and scholarly,'' TheRecord & Guide said. Hardenbergh designed buildings for long-term use, not short-term profit, and his insistence on heavy, conservative masonry designs increased his reputation for dependable solidity.

THIS suited estates and companies well, so it was natural that the Astors hired him for their Bavarian-style nine-story building at 10 Wall Street (demolished around 1930). And Western Union retained him for several buildings, including the picturesque little structure that still survives at the southwest corner of 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue, described by The Architectural Record as ''one of the happiest bits of our street architecture.''

He also worked for the Rhinelander estate, designing a handful of informal red-brick row houses, among them 337-339 East 87th Street (1887). The Schermerhorns also built for the long term, and in 1887 Hardenbergh designed the six-story building at the northwest corner of Lafayette and Great Jones for William C. Schermerhorn.

The dwarf columns on the ground floor, eccentric end bays (which hold the elevators and stairways) and richly modeled terra cotta and stone work combine to make a wonderfully chunky masterpiece, especially for an industrial building. Research by the preservation consultant Mary Dierickx identifies the earliest known tenant as Albert Robertson, a corset manufacturer.

A review in the Real Estate Record & Guide in 1889 called the Schermerhorn Building ''a creditable work, tried by the strictest standards. As things go, it is very good indeed.'' In 1966 it became the first of Hardenbergh's buildings to be designated a New York City landmark -- the Dakota's designation came three years later.

In the 1890's, the Astors returned to Hardenbergh for the stupendously picturesque Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, built in two sections on Fifth Avenue from 33rd to 34th Streets and later replaced by the Empire State Building. There, the architect hewed more closely to the Germanic Renaissance, putting giant spires, balconies, porches and dormers on this red-brick and brownstone hostelry, one of the most famous in the city's history.

The 13-story Wolfe Building, built in 1895 at William Street and Maiden Lane but demolished in 1974 and forgotten now, was widely praised as a solution to the problem of skyscraper design. This Flemish-style building was capped with huge stepped gables -- some as big as a row house -- and a clock. The building had varied angles cascading down to the street in brilliantly contrasting red and buff brick.

THEN, in the new century, Hardenbergh got four plum hotel commissions -- the Willard in Washington (1902), the Plaza (1907), the Martinique at 32nd Street and Broadway (1910) and Boston's Copley-Plaza (1912) -- that firmly established him as a specialist in steel-frame hotel design.

But he was also proud of his smaller buildings, like the Art Students League at 215 West 57th Street, designed in 1891, and the All Angels' Church, at 251 West 80th Street, designed in 1904.

Hardenbergh was still at work when World War I limited new construction and interrupted his career, and he died in 1918 before he could resume.

Personal information on Henry Hardenbergh is scarce. He alternated living in New York and New Jersey, at first at 121 West 73rd Street, in Jersey City and Bernardsville, and in a big town house of his own design at 12 East 56th Street. The 1900 census describes him as widowed, but he apparently had no children; for a time he practiced with John P. Hardenbergh Jr. and Adriance Hardenbergh, apparently his brother and nephew, respectively. He was a member of the Century Association, the Grolier Club and other clubs.

Hardenbergh maintained a proprietary interest in his buildings long after he had parted company with the client. In 1891, responding to a complaint that delivery wagons were using the Dakota's main courtyard, he wrote to American Architect and Building News to say that ''a grocer's wagon has never been seen within the quiet precincts of this courtyard, and an ice cart would cause as much consternation to the aristocratic tenants as a streetcar trundled into the space.''

At the Time Cafe building, Edward Kandler, one of its owners, says that the $400,000 renovation started small but grew to ''reproducing the original forms with castings and moldings -- a full restoration.'' Mr. Kandler says that the building's tenants now include architects, investment bankers and movie producers, but that he and his brother Bernard still operate a leather company there.

''It was designed strictly for manufacturing,'' he said, ''but now we're the only manufacturing outfit in the building.''

Photos: Among buildings designed by Henry Hardenbergh (clockwise from above) were the Western Union building (in an 1880's photo); the Schermerhorn Building (1944 photo); the Wolfe Building (1890's); and the Plaza. (Photographs from Office for Metropolitan History); (Jonathan Atkin for The New York Times)